After our visit to the Bridge Road Brewery, we had free time. Most of us retired to our rooms, roamed the town or kicked handegg* till we were sore.
I had a constitutional after having pulled an all-nighter. I roughly recall being dragged out of our gorgeous accommodation to Ben Kraus’ pub the Tanswells.
In my somnolence, I’m not really sure how it happened but I ended up at Provenance. It wasn’t too far from Tanswells Hotel and Tristan had made the snap decision to call them to see if they had a table for two. They did. Being the consummate food blogger wankster that he is, Tristan ran back up that bloody hill to our accommodation to get his camera.
In contemplative solitude, what’s a girl to do but drink. I started with Poire William Bertrand eau de vie. It’s been way too long since I had pear (poire) eau de vie. I most certainly wasn’t going to drink any Bridge Road beer when I could get that from its maker direct, was I now? Great that they had it on their drinks list though!
I warn you in advance that this is going to be a very long post: Tristan had the omnivore degustation while I opted to have the vegetarian: I simply wasn’t in the mood for meat – yes, strange but true. I blame it on the pseudo-flu (or that ‘100 day cough’ as Ed called it) from which I still have not yet fully recovered, three weeks on.
The first course was the same for both of us – butter sautéed cauliflower, cauliflower purée, mustard sabayon, polenta shortbread crumbs and brown butter jelly. Yep, for a vegetarian course, it has a lot going on. Personally, I love cauliflower (though I suspect it may have upset my tummy later that night – it’s a gassy vegetable). I love its presentation – reminds me a little of a savoury version of Roelofs’ Cafe Rosamond edible sculptures.
